While you don t need to, and while you don' t have to, when you DM I encourage you to ask your players "why does your PC adventure?" If they can answer that straight away, great! It will allow that player to tell you about the motivations of the player. If they player cannot, try to work it through with them and answer the question, 'Why does that PC adventure?'

The opinion I want to address today is regarding Kender. That mischievous and childlike race embodied for many in the character of Tasselhoff Burrfoot. I’m not sure now what it was that made me have such a dislike of the character. Guessing, it could have been the impetuousness, the irresponsibility or the insatiable and often misunderstood kleptomania. Or it could have been how my fellow gamers approached Kender and abused the idea of them in gaming. And abuse them they did.

Turning through those magical pages, chocked full of advertisements and articles about numerous games – not just D&D – I wound invariably turn towards the back of the magazine to find a gloriously colored strip by an artist, my young mind would not connect to some of the most iconic images in D&D history, David A. Trampier.

Setting the nature of the game allows for the players to understand what it is they are signing up to play. If you are looking to run high epic fantasy, going into some depth as to the history of the world, the role of magic and variations of races and classes/professions will aid the players in understanding the scope of what is available to play and where they land in the sandbox.